CONSIDERING ALL THE WORKS of God, all the
creative works, all the states of creative work through the known universe over
the vast millennia of history, what is the greatest single work of the Lord?
I think it is this:
“Even though our outer nature is
wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed
day by day.”
— 2 Corinthians 4:16 (NRSV)
For God to open up from within us that line
of holy inquiry, where the Spirit of God not only penetrates, but he makes his
way into us, renewing our inner natures every day, sanctifying us more and more
to potentially new inroads, is nothing short of the most breathtaking of all
God’s works.
God changes life; he changes us as we allow.
And who is the benefactor?
What We Stand to Gain
As if it were the most important of all
imperatives, we stand to gain in very many personal ways. (And our gain isn’t
the most important of imperatives; God’s glory has that glorious distinction.)
When we build on the foundation of truth, as
God rightly dwells in and is Sovereign within us – the truth that has been born
or reborn in us – that truth has traction day by day by the matters of real,
God-enabled mercy.
MERCY
Yes, mercy has to be God’s greatest
accomplishment in us; that we would be able to see as God sees, full of grace,
understanding, and depth of insight.
When mercy has full empowerment and it has
full sponsorship of flight, we, wicked, broken and inept human beings as we
are, can become truly everything God originally designed us to be. It can occur
one moment at a time.
What God Stands to Gain
The most important of all imperatives is
finally in sight – and this is our true magnum opus. When God is glorified in
and through us, by our renewals of mercy day by day, it is God’s crowning glory
in a worldly moment – heaven has truly reached down to earth: “On earth as it
is in heaven.”
Life is all about God in case we haven’t
already noticed. We have no rights being here, being alive, existing, if we
there is no God. If it weren’t for the Son’s obedience and the Father’s most
magnanimous gift of sacrifice the human race would be dead a long time back!
That we can be enlivened to the majesties of
mercy is an ongoing miracle to the glory of God.
***
The greatest work of God – transcending the
works of creation unto the entire universe – is the transformation and renewal of
one broken soul. Sanctified and made new, day by day, to the glorious reality
of God’s transforming character, mercy comes alive in such a crass specimen as
us. Thanks be to the Father for his glorious gift of salvation.
© 2013 S. J. Wickham.
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